


Magic's Price, or, How to Make Your Brother's Brain Explode in One Word

by Kara (magelette)



Category: Young Wizards - Duane
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magelette/pseuds/Kara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmela thought she was set in her life, since she'd never admitted to wanting this in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magic's Price, or, How to Make Your Brother's Brain Explode in One Word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tagalongcookies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tagalongcookies/gifts).



Carmela stared at the iPhone. "You sure you wanna be talking to me? Don't you want the red-headed genius over there?" She waved the iPhone in Dairine's general direction, but Dairine was too involved with Spot to notice. "I mean, I just came to find my heart's desire. I wasn't looking for a manual or anything." Really, she thought she'd come to the Crossings looking for an awesome new fedora. Or maybe her very own Prince Roshaun Charming, since Dairine had already claimed the first alien prince, and Ronan was a little too emo for her taste.

"Wizardry does not live in the unwilling heart," the iPhone chirped in its chipper voice. For some reason, it sounded like John Cleese. Papi got the new Garmin, and it sounded like John Cleese after the DVD player started talking to it. Papi swore never to buy electronics ever again. Or maybe to become Amish. Except, knowing Papi's luck, the plough would start talking back.

"But I wasn't looking for wizardry! I was looking for chocolate!" Or maybe Prince Charming. Or maybe a fedora. Or there was that cute little attachment for her atomic curling iron that she needed. Something about pulsar-tronic doo-hicky that made Kit's eyebrows arch up and brain explode. "Sker'ret said that a new kiosk opened up in the main concourse. I wasn't looking for—"

But the iPhone had called her name, flashing a cute little amigurumi face that beckoned. The DVD player didn't make super-deformed faces at her.

"I..." She didn't know what she wanted. She'd gotten along just fine this far without being a wizard, as part-time chocolate smuggler, unofficial ambassador and Xenoanthropology major at the big university on Alpha Centauri.

But she did know what she wanted, because there was more than one reason why she got along with Dairine, conniving cunning aside. For all that Dairine had been an obnoxious twerp and would always be a freaky know-it-all genius, Dairine knew what it was like to want to belong, and to see your sibling become part of that dream, all without asking. No one had offered wizardry to Carmela before, but in her gut, she knew how much she'd always wanted it, and how afraid she'd been to voice that desire.

"If I say yes?" Her voice didn't tremble, because that wasn't what Carmela Emeda Rodriguez _did_.

This time, though, she would probably make an exception.

"Magic's price," the iPhone reminded her quietly, suddenly sounding less shrill than Basil Fawlty, and echoing the more remorseful tones of Dumbledore. Or maybe even the voice that a snake had used in a garden somewhere. Did she want the apple? Would she pay the price?

Then she thought of the look on Kit's face, and how much fun it would be to make his little brain explode.

She grinned.

"Yes."

Some things were worth the price, no matter how much it upset your life.


End file.
